By DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary

Don’t forget to tune in tonight for another thrill-packed adventure of PLANET VALENTI TELEVISION. We will mop the floor with The MOP and perform other astounding feats. Channel 16, tonight, live, 7 to 8 p.m. Replays Friday at 11:30 a.m., 3 p.m., 6:30 p.m., and 11 p.m. and on YouTube search “Planet Valenti TV.“

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THURSDAY, SEPT. 18, 2014, 2014) — It’s time to make the donuts again. The Diocese of Springfield is paying taxes on the 2.6-acre St. Mary‘s campus on Tyler Street, but it doesn’t appear to be the commercial rate. Is there a hybrid classification for defrocked churches? In any case, it would appear virtually certain that the new Dunkin Donuts proposed for that location will pay considerably more in taxes, at the full and ruinous business rate of $35.17/thousand, a rate that keeps many businesses from even so much as sniffing around Pittsfield.

As for that particular location, several commentators to THE PLANET mentioned other spots for a Dunking Donuts, the former Hess station being one of them. We hear, however, that Cafua Management does not find that location viable for both the shape and size of the lot as well as concerns about gasoline, oil, lubricants, and other automotive chemicals that may be on the site.

In addition, THE PLANET was told that the developer wants to locate on the other side of Tyler Street. It may not seem like a big deal which side of the street the restaurant is located, but traffic studies show that during morning drive time, more traffic heads west into Pittsfield from the Dalton-Cheshire area than travels south toward Berkshire Crossing. When you consider that coffee is Dunkin Donuts’ most profitable staple with the highest markup (donuts only comprise about 20% of sales), the easiest to make in quantity, and the quickest to serve, the consideration makes sense. Over a 365-day year, that additional traffic on working days adds up.

The best alternate location we heard of was the former Burger King on Merrill Road. Sources tell THE PLANET that Cafua Management looked into that location but quickly backed off after meeting resistance from the Bianchi Administration. We weren’t told anything more than that and have no other details. If this is true, it would make one wonder why? What reason could there be for that type of anti-business attitude, again if true? You can make up your own answer, because, as you know, The Mayor of Pittsfield (The MOP) doesn’t return our requests for comment.

Some have asked why Cafua would want to locate multiple DD shops in proximity of one another? The answer seems to be found in “clustering,” a marketing strategy which essentially believes there is strength in numbers. If Cafua owns all the franchises, it is not in competition. You can be sure the company’s internal demographics support the locations.

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Is it a black thing? THE PLANET dares ask

We know about Ray Rice, the elevator, Janay, and Goodell. We continue to glide through Adrian Peterson, the switch, and the “he’s out, he’s in, he’s back out” policy of the Minnesota Vikings toward their star player. Prior to that, there was Ray Lewis and a long line of others. Now comes word of  the latest escapade of Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston, reigning Heisman Trophy winner and star of the #1 ranked Seminoles.

Last year, Winston came under investigation in connection with an alleged rape of a female Florida State student.  The D.A. eventually dropped the charges. In 2012, police questioned Winston and other Seminole football players following gun play involving BB guns. Then he was, according to Sports Illustrated, “implicated” in an alleged theft of soda at a local Burger King. This spring, the QB was cited in connection with a shoplifting incident at a Publix supermarket.

That’s what you call running the naked bootleg. Yesterday, we learned the latest stunt pulled by this paragon of virtue.

According to Yahoo! Sports, “Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston stood on a table and yelled “fuck her right in the pussy” on campus [Tuesday], according to a bunch of students who saw him. For the unaware, “Fuck her right in the pussy” was a fake video that turned into a meme, with a few people shouting it on live news broadcasts. It is now dead, because Jameis Winston climbed onto a table and yelled it.”

[EDITOR’S NOTE: A “meme” is an aspect of a society, usually involving a certain type of behavior, that passes quickly from one person to another. The Internet creates memes as a matter of routine, once again proving that the younger generation is imitative rather than creative, imitation and copy-catting being the most common way something “goes viral.”]

“Fuck her right in the pussy.”

“Twenty-three skidoo” and “Hell no we won’t go” apparently don’t satisfy the gutter mentalities of the scholars of Generation Y, who rushed their thumbs in defense of Winston, basically tweeting that it was “no big deal.” Many of these defenders of Sir James were women. After this latest incident, the university announced Winston will be suspended for the first half of Saturday’s home game versus Clemson.

Connects and Disconnects

Is THE PLANET the only one to see a major disconnect here, especially in light of the Ray Rice case, the spotlight on domestic violence, and how the topics of date rape and even sexuality in general are being blown out of proportion on college campuses and in the boring discourse of “experts”? For example, on dates, the new wisdom is “‘No’ means no, but ‘yes’ doesn’t always mean yes.” You explain to me how young men and women, in the throes of the harmonious wonder and delight of sex, are supposed to wade through all this in the heat of the moment? Also, does it not set up a boatload of allegations from those who, the morning after, have regrets about their actions the night before? “She consented” may no longer be enough. Signed and notarized affidavits may be required.

And can anyone except THE PLANET and Tom Townshend see a connection between this type of violent and nihilistic behavior and hip-hop? Is the effect of a too-much-too-long-too-loud gangsta’ world view now showing up in sports that are primarily black? Has that cesspool masking as “music” finally begun to work its way into the NFL (70% black) and the NBA (77% black)? (By comparison, only 8% of major league baseball players are black and the National Hockey League has less than 3% — sports that, anecdotally at least, seem relatively immune from the type of violent behavior now on routine display in the NFL and NBA.)

[THE PLANET at this point interjects this latest news from the NFL. Jonathan Dwyer, a running back for the Arizona Cardinals, was arrested yesterday and charged with two incidents of aggravated assault. The team then banned Dwyer from all team activities. Dwyer is black. The alleged incidents, Phoenix police say, involve Dwyer’s wife and his year-and-a-half old baby. Meanwhile, Ray McDonald, a defensive lineman for the San Francisco 49ers, has a hearing coming up on charges of domestic violence. Greg Hardy, a defensive lineman for the Carolina Panthers, was convicted of domestic assault in July. The Panthers only yesterday banished Hardy from the team. The 49ers have allowed McDonald to continue to practice and play. The lietenant governor of California has publicly pressured the 49ers to bench or suspend McDonald. Both McDonald and Hardy are  black.]

Townshend notes that hip hop and rap are not the same. Rap featured more poetics and addressed topics such as the search for love, but, “Townshend writes, “hip hop is different.”

How so? Townshend explains:

“It’s not a comfortable thing to admit, because there are those on the religious right in America who harbour an anti-hip hop agenda which simply equates to racism. We are not and never will be on their side. But because hip hop is so much more than a musical style, more enduring than a pop fad, and more inextricably entwined with a generation’s identity than anything that’s gone before or since, then it is different. And because of its reach, endurance and influence it could, dare we say it, be dangerous.

“Let’s talk about gangsta rap – the graphic, profane and violent sub-genre that sprang up during the so-called golden age of mid-80s hip hop.

“Seen as a potential threat even then, one of its pioneers, the former pimp and bank robber Ice-T likened gangsta rap to cowboy movies – a fantasy world of outlaws and rough justice. And yet its proponents were demonised for glorifying the same violence a previous generation of schoolchildren had grown up enjoying at the Saturday morning pictures.

“Ice-T had a point, but the Old West as depicted in the films was a mythologised version of America’s brutal past. When gangsta rap crossed the line was when it became a self-perpetuating, self-mythologising version of America’s brutal present.

“The audience for a John Wayne western weren’t leaving the cinema and drawing a Colt .45 on a redskin. But the hip hop audience were and are gunning each other down in the same gang-blighted neighbourhoods immortalized in the tracks they’re listening to.

“Any socio-political motive in the music of early instigators N.W.A or Boogie Down Productions was quickly buried in the clamour for commercial success. The records got nastier and sales went higher.

“Gangsta rap may have started life on the streets of Compton, but it was repackaged and marketed to the summer houses of The Hamptons. Genuine social ills were now entertainment for the masses and the upper classes. For those on the street it was real, for those up above it was escapism – and both were buying it by the millions.

“If hip hop really has degraded society then this is where the rot began – by making heroes out of killers, pimps and hustlers, by perpetuating the worst aspects of the failing American social housing program, and by normalising the language of brutality, revenge and murder.